Precious Oud
Mancera (2019)

Lovely. Who would have thought that whiskey, rose, and tiramisu would work so well together, and that they could smell sophisticated rather than smelling like an excessive end to an opulent meal. The magnolia, violet, and oakmoss seem to ground Precious Oud, and give the voluptuous rose dignity and depth. If, like me, you crave unusual twists on rose, then Precious Oud is a safe blind buy, but it is probably not suitable for people who like edible fragrances.

I'm not entirely sure if oud goes well with the note of tiramisu, and at times they can conflict. However, the light leather, whisky, and rose can bridge the gap between the oud and tiramisu. The oud blends nicely with the vanilla and amber. In the drydown, I get a light vanillic rose with some faint florals and a hint of leather muskiness.

Performance is good and it will last throughout a workday. While it's not groundbreaking, it's one of the most pleasant Mancera fragrances I've smelled.

All the notes sound like something I'd like, along with all the reviews.
However, I spray it and it just smells of cough medicine or something...a familiar scent that I do not like at all.

I have 100+ fragrances and this is one of the few ones I have had to scrub off.

An unusual oud offering from Mancera, this one has very much a ‘disparate elements held mysteriously in place' approach – how else do you explain leather and a cheesy oud, juxtaposed with cakey vanilla and sweet booze, and burgeoning – bang in the centre – juicy and clean pink floral notes? It should be a horrible hodgepodge, just as mixing too many colours usually results in a muddy shade, but this feels as relaxed and pleasurable as having time on one's hands on a Sunday morning. For me that shower-fresh floral centre seems to be key to how the rest of it falls around it, adding buoyancy and laughter to the spirit of the thing, and ensuring that the more serious elements don't spoil the mood.
But when those florals suddenly deflate after a couple of hours, one is left with the impression of yet another ethyl maltol harpy prowling the hospital corridor where Baccarat Rouge was birthed, talons clutching a slice of last week's vanilla sponge.

Mancera Precious Oud is yet another 2019 release the Montale/Mancera empire that keeps churning out new fragrances like a factory. I really enjoyed sampling Montale Oud Dream the other day and Mancera Precious Oud does not disappoint, either. The note list is complex, not Roja-esque, but a lot more than the rose/patchouli/oud breakdown of Oud Dream.

Precoius Oud has the rose and oud, unsurprisingly, but it has sweet and boozy hints as well: tiramisu, whiskey, and leather are listed verbatim, along with a handful of florals and a familiar dry down of patchouli, cedar, sandalwood, vanilla, amber, and oakmoss. So the note list is a lot to digest, no food pun intended, but the upshot for me as a balance between a rose/oud fragrance and a gourmand sweet/boozy fragrance, and a pretty even balance, at that. It's a nod to both the rose/oud lovers and gourmand lovers.

As usual, the performance is very strong, certainly more than satisfactory for the type of scent it is, something I'd be more inclined to wear in cooler weather, when the juice needs to be a bit stronger to stand out.

I might not quite love it as much as Oud Dream but it's surely a winner, for me, one I need to try some more but a release that I'm impressed with upon trying it even just once.

The only retail option in the US that I see for now is Osswald NYC, a great shop, but they're currently sold out of it, and it's almost certainly at the standard Mancera pricing of $180 for 120m

Overall, I'm very pleased with this one, another banger from this company.

8 out of 10